Washington Life

House Handshakers Already Lined Up for Obama

By Mary Ann Akers
President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight won't be an official State of the Union address, but everyone is treating it that way. Including the annual handshake hogs.

Those are the members of Congress who, every year, no matter whether they like the president in office or not, stake out aisle seats many hours in advance of the speech so they can shake the president's hand -- on prime time national television, no less.

The club of handshake hogs includes die-hard liberals who each year, without fail, during President Bush's eight-year presidency, snagged aisle seats early in the day to be in prime handshake position for the president's entrance and exit from the House chamber.

And so it goes this year.

At 9:30 a.m. this morning, California Reps. Barbara Lee and Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats, were spotted on the House floor putting paper signs on two aisle seats, according to a well-placed Sleuth informant. And they weren't the first ones to do so.